College Football Countdown: 94 Days

Nov 19, 2016; Nashville, TN, USA; Mississippi Rebels players combine to tackle Vanderbilt Commodores receiver Darrius Sims (6) during the second half at Vanderbilt Stadium. Vanderbilt won 38-17. Mandatory Credit: Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports

On today’s edition of the College Football Countdown, we focus on the defensive side of the ball, more specifically the red zone defense.

Red zone defense. It can be what separates the good defenses from the great defenses. It’s also something that can turn a descent defense into a bad defense.

In 2016, the average red zone defense in the country allowed opponents to score on 84.1 percent of red zone attempts. And even mighty Alabama allowed opponents to score on 84.0 percent of red zone attempts. However, Alabama only allowed 25 red zone attempts, the fewest in the country. And that leads us to no. 94 on today’s College Football Countdown.

Ole Miss’s defensive red zone scoring percentage.

Previous: No. 95

Next: No. 93

Technically, Ole Miss allowed opponents to score on 93.8 percent of red zone attempts, but it’s close enough. Their red zone scoring percentage was 126th out of 128 FBS teams. Only Ball State and Texas State were worse, and those teams went 4-8 and 2-10 respectively.

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Georgia was the second-worst in the SEC, allowing opponents to score on 90.7 percent of red zone attempts.

The Rebels were 77th in the country in red zone attempts, allowing 48 in 2016.

Red zone scoring percentage, however, can be a misleading stat. Allowing touchdowns in the red zone is one of the more telling stats, and the Rebels were 103rd in the country, allowing 35 touchdowns on 48 red zone attempts last season, a 72.9 percent rate.

Ole Miss returns 6 starters from last year’s defense. And their 11 total returning starters is tied with Alabama and LSU for the fewest in the SEC.

The Rebels also have a new man calling the shots for the defense in Wesley McGriff. McGriff was previously the co-defensive coordinator and cornerbacks coach at Ole Miss in 2012, before spending three years with the New Orleans Saints and then last year with Auburn.

If McGriff can improve the Rebels’ red zone defense, that could improve Ole Miss’ 5-7 record from a year ago.